Announcement

**JJackson** · August 20, 2020, 07:17 AM

Emily - Outrageous seems perfectly apt to me. The NIH grant procedure gave a grant to Eco-Health Alliance following its own mandated grant application scoring procedures which is designed to let the research applications that most closely match its list of priorities get awarded funds. Eco-Health alliance's application ticked all the right boxes as it was performing research into a poorly sampled host reservoir of a pathogen with know pandemic potential. This pandemic seems to have confirmed they, and the NIH, were completely vindicated in their priorities and that more research of this type is a high priority. The whole system was designed to let the NIH be independent of lobbying and political pressure and only fund research on its merits. Eco-Health scored very highly and was given the funds. Then an unproven accusation, with no merit and against the scientific consensus, was made regarding genetic manipulation. The funding was withdrawn under political pressure. This has destroyed decades of best practice and leaves everyone else who has been given an NIH research grant wondering if some politician, or twitter meme, is going to get their funding pulled. A very sad day for science and the United states. Galileo seemed to have a similar problem, he said something true but politically inconvenient. What happened to evidence based science in the USA?

**bertrand789** · August 20, 2020, 09:31 PM

Cette O. N. G ? quels objectifs ? Je crois me souvenir avoir signal? sur leur site sur l'inde des choses...

**bertrand789** · August 21, 2020, 12:22 AM

De plus,

le choix de son titre, me semble une faute. C'est un concept de gestion, que doivent s'approprier, les scientiques de chaque pays.

Bien sur, cela n'a de sens, que si, au minimum, la tracabilite est cr?dible ?

**JJackson** · August 21, 2020, 07:16 AM

Emily and Bertrand I do not understand how anyone can have a problem with what Eco-Health Alliance do, it is all about compassion for humanity (which includes US citizens), although I am not sure those who pulled its funding deserve any. Its raison d'etre is to find actual and potential zoonotic pathogens in their wild hosts. The grant that was pulled was looking at Chinese bat colonies for SARS like viruses to find out what is out there that could cause a pandemic, which seems about as high priority as you can get given what is going on at the moment. The grant also covered serology testing of the local population around the caves to see how much spill over there was into the local population from which they calculated over a million SL CoV infections a year - of which SARS-1 & SARS-2 are the only ones to have been sufficiently well human adapted to go on to sustained H2H. They were also training and equipping the small local clinics that these people would go to if they got ill so they could safely take and store samples for shipping to a lab for PCR analysis. Included in this work was looking at the human bat interactions such as sheltering in caves from rain, collecting guano as crop fertiliser, catching bats etc. so they could set up education of the local population to avoid high risk behaviours.
They performed the same function for Nipah - another bat borne Zoonotic virus but this time with a 60% CFR. They traced the source of the virus to its fruit bat host, observed the bats, saw they were feeding on fruit trees that had been planted to provide shade and some food for the pigs, found the pigs to be the intermediate host and the droppings the route of transmission. They recommended the trees be replaced with non fruiting varieties and the problem was largely solved.
They then looked at old ProMed mails for other unexplained encephalitis outbreaks and found regular large clusters, often with hundreds of deaths, in Bangladesh and looked for bats and Nipah which it turns out was the cause and they have been working with local farmers and HCW to repeat the success they had in Malaysia. Their expedition to the the Chinese bat caves was originally to look for Nipah but was a failure however Limfor Wang was looking at the samples they collected and discovered SL beta CoVs and it is courtesy of their work that we have the sequences we have including RaTG13 with its SARS1/2 like S1 RBD. If more research had been done sampling in these bat populations we would have had a better idea about the diversity of CoVs in bats and would have realised that further SARS like outbreaks were inevitable and prioritised funding of broadly acting anti-virals against alpha and beta Corona viruses and we would not have had to shut down our economies as far as we have.
Emily whats not to like?
Betrand - I can not think of anything that fits the OneHealth model better. Operating as and ONG allows them to work with all governments, who they need permission from for access, without being tied closely to one which would cause political problems.

All. Flutrackers was founded post 2005 H5N1 zoonotic spillover (the name rather gives it away) to look at exactly this process in bird to human transmission. I would expect us to be at the forefront of pushing for exactly this kind zoonosis investigation in bats. It saddens me, who has spent the last 10 years trying to preach the dangers of animal host human spillover and the danger of lack of preparedness for exactly this kind of event, that even at FluTrackers there are those who do not think this is work is of paramount importance.

**Pathfinder** · August 21, 2020, 12:15 PM

Originally posted by Pathfinder View Post

NIH Presses U.S. Nonprofit for Information on Wuhan Virology Lab

National Institutes of Health told EcoHealth Alliance it must hand over information and materials from Chinese research facility to resume funding for suspended grant

By Betsy McKay
Aug. 19, 2020 5:30 am ET

The National Institutes of Health told a small New York-based nonprofit that it must hand over information and materials from a research partner in Wuhan, China, that is under scrutiny by the Trump administration to win back a multimillion-dollar research grant.

Among the items the nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance must provide to resume funding is a sample of the new coronavirus that the Wuhan researchers used to determine its genetic sequence, according to a July 8 letter from the NIH viewed by The Wall Street Journal.

...
https://www.wsj.com/articles/nih-pre...ab-11597829400

What is discussed in this article is a grant of $661,980 awarded to EcoHealth Alliance in July 2019.

This grant was for the project "Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence".

NIH suspended the grant for this project in April 2020. What was left of this grant, $369,819, was withdrawn.

This is the abstract of this project:

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This project will examine the risk of future coronavirus (CoV) emergence from wildlife using in-depth field investigations across the human-wildlife interface in China, molecular characterization of novel CoVs and host receptor binding domain genes, mathematical models of transmission and evolution, and in vitro and in vivo laboratory studies of host range. Zoonotic CoVs are a significant threat to global health, as demonstrated with the emergence of pandemic severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) in China in 2002, and the recent and ongoing emergence of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-CoV). Bats appear to be the natural reservoir of these viruses, and hundreds of novel bat-CoVs have been discovered in the last two decades. Bats, and other wildlife species, are hunted, traded, butchered and consumed across Asia, creating a large scale human-wildlife interface, and high risk of future emergence of novel CoVs. This project aims to understand what factors increase the risk of the next CoV emerging in people by studying CoV diversity in a critical zoonotic reservoir (bats), at sites of high risk for emergence (wildlife markets) in an emerging disease hotspot (China). The three specific aims of this project are to: 1. Assess CoV spillover potential at high risk human-wildlife interfaces in China. This will include quantifying he nature and frequency of contact people have with bats and other wildlife; serological and molecular screening of people working in wet markets and highly exposed to wildlife; screening wild-caught and market sampled bats from 30+ species for CoVs using molecular assays; and genomic characterization and isolation of novel CoVs. 2. Develop predictive models of bat CoV emergence risk and host range. A combined modeling approach will include phylogenetic analyses of host receptors and novel CoV genes (including functional receptor binding domains); a fused ecological and evolutionary model to predict host-range and viral sharing; and mathematical matrix models to examine evolutionary and transmission dynamics. 3. Test predictions of CoV inter-species transmission. Predictive models of host range (i.e. emergence potential) will be tested experimentally using reverse genetics, pseudovirus and receptor binding assays, and virus infection experiments across a range of cell cultures from different species and humanized mice.

https://taggs.hhs.gov/Detail/AwardDe...&arg_ProgOffic eCode=104

https://taggs.hhs.gov/Detail/RecipDe...lnTv6X4AxA%3D% 3D

On 6/17/2020, EcoHealth Alliance received new funding from the NIH in the amount of $1,546,744 for another project:

This grant is currently awarded for the project "Understanding Risk of Zoonotic Virus Emergence in EID Hotspots of Southeast Asia".

This is the abstract of this project:

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Southeast Asia is one of the world’s highest-risk EID hotspots, the origin of the SARS pandemic, Nipah virus, and repeated outbreaks of influenza. This is driven by high diversity of wildlife and rapidly expanding demography that brings human and wildlife populations closer. This proposal will launch the Emerging Infectious Diseases - South East Asia Research Collaboration Hub (EID-SEARCH), a collaboration among leaders in emerging disease research in the USA, Thailand, Singapore and the 3 major Malaysian administrative regions. These researchers have networks that span >50 clinics, laboratories and research institutions across almost all SE Asian countries and will use the EID-SEARCH as an early warning system for outbreaks involving exchange of information, reagents, samples and technology, and a collaborative power- house for fundamental and translational research. The EID-SEARCH will also act as a significant asset to scale-up and deploy resources in the case of an outbreak in the region. This EIDRC will conduct research to: 1) Identify, characterize and rank spillover risk of high zoonotic potential viruses from wildlife, by analyzing previously-archived wildlife samples, conducting targeted wildlife surveillance, and using serology & PCR assays to identify novel viruses. These will be characterized to assess risk of spillover to people, and a series of in vitro (receptor binding, cell culture) and in vivo (humanized mouse and collaborative cross models) assays used to assess their potential to infect people and cause disease; 2) Collect samples and questionnaire data from human communities that live in EID hotspots and have high cultural and behavioral risk of animal exposure (e.g. wildlife hunting, bat guano collection). These will be tested with serological assays to identify evidence of novel virus spillover, and analyzed against metadata to identify key risk pathways for transmission; 3) Identify and characterize viral etiology of ‘cryptic’ outbreaks in clinical cohorts. We will conduct syndromic surveillance at clinics serving the populations in Aim 2, enroll patients with undiagnosed illness and symptoms consistent with emerging viral pathogens, and test samples with molecular and follow-up serological assays to identify causal links between these syndromes and novel viruses. This research will advance our understanding of the risk of novel viral emergence in a uniquely important region. It will also strengthen in-country research capacity by linking local infectious disease scientists with an international collaborative network that has proven capacity to conduct this work and produce significant findings. The large body of high impact collaborative research from this EIDRC leadership team provides proof-of-concept that EID-SEARCH has the background, collaborative network, experience, and skillset to act as a unique early warning system for novel EIDs of any etiology threatening to emerge in this hottest of the EID hotspots.

https://taggs.hhs.gov/Detail/AwardDe...&arg_ProgOffic eCode=104

https://taggs.hhs.gov/Detail/RecipDe...lnTv6X4AxA%3D% 3D

**bertrand789** · August 21, 2020, 12:35 PM

Dit autrement, en ce lieu , o? l'on est gracieux, notamment, avec Emilie, ou .

**Pathfinder** · August 24, 2020, 12:52 PM

Broad host range of SARS-CoV-2 predicted by comparative and structural analysis of ACE2 in vertebrates

View ORCID ProfileJoana Damas, View ORCID ProfileGraham M. Hughes, View ORCID ProfileKathleen C. Keough, View ORCID ProfileCorrie A. Painter, View ORCID ProfileNicole S. Persky, View ORCID ProfileMarco Corbo, View ORCID ProfileMichael Hiller, View ORCID ProfileKlaus-Peter Koepfli, View ORCID ProfileAndreas R. Pfenning, View ORCID ProfileHuabin Zhao, View ORCID ProfileDiane P. Genereux, View ORCID ProfileRoss Swofford, View ORCID ProfileKatherine S. Pollard, View ORCID ProfileOliver A. Ryder, View ORCID ProfileMartin T. Nweeia, View ORCID ProfileKerstin Lindblad-Toh, View ORCID ProfileEmma C. Teeling, View ORCID ProfileElinor K. Karlsson, and View ORCID ProfileHarris A. Lewin
PNAS first published August 21, 2020 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2010146117

...
Bats and Other Species of Interest.

Chiroptera represents a clade of mammals that are of high interest in COVID-19 research because several bat species are known to harbor coronaviruses, including those most closely related to SARS-CoV-2 (1). We analyzed ACE2 from 37 bat species, of which 8 and 29 scored low and very low, respectively. These results were intriguing because the three Rhinolophus spp. tested, including the Chinese rufous horseshoe bat, are major suspects in the transmission of SARS-CoV-2, or a closely related virus, to humans (1). Bats have been shown to harbor the highest diversity of betacoronaviruses among mammals (28) and show little pathology in individuals carrying these viruses (61).

Do bat ACE2 receptors bind SARS-CoV-2 S? Zhou et al. (1) transfected human ACE2-negative HeLa cells with ACE2 from a Chinese rufous horseshoe bat and obtained a low-efficiency infection with SARS-CoV-2. A recent report indicates that SARS-CoV-2 S protein can bind vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) pseudotypes expressing halcyon horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus alcyone) ACE2 in BHK-21 cells (60). However, cell lines derived from big brown bat (Eptesicus fuscus) (62), Lander’s horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus landeri), and Daubenton’s bat (Myotis daubentonii) could not be infected with SARS-CoV-2 (60). Relatedly, cell lines from six different species of bats could not be infected with SARS-CoV, which also uses human ACE2 as a receptor (63). These data suggest that some bat species have evolved ACE2 receptors that do not bind SARS-CoV-like viruses or bind them with very low affinity, which is supported by our results showing positive selection and accelerated evolution of ACE2 in chiropterans. Alternatively, ACE2 expression could be very low in the bat cell lines, or SARS-CoV-2-like viruses can use other receptors, such as the MERS-CoV, a betacoronavirus that uses CD26/DPP4 (15), and porcine transmissible enteritis virus, an alphacoronavirus that uses aminopeptidase N (64). Also, other molecules required for SARS-CoV infection, such as TMPRSS2, might not be sufficiently expressed or function differently in bats.

Whether an ancestor of SARS-CoV-2, such as RaTG13, utilizes bat ACE2 is an important question related to whether bat ACE2 receptors bind SARS-CoV-2 S (discussed above). RaTG13 was found in feces of the intermediate horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus affinis) (1), but to our knowledge this virus has not been shown to bind to ACE2 of R. affinis or any other bat species. In addition, RaTG13 was reported not to infect human cells expressing Rhinolophus sinicus ACE2 in a recent study (65). Relatedly, Hoffman et al. (63) were unable to infect bat kidney- and lung-derived cell lines derived from six different species with VSV pseudotypes bearing SARS-CoV S protein or pseudotypes of two bat SARS-related CoV (Bg08 and Rp3) (63). Lack of concordance between the presence of bat SARS-CoV-like coronaviruses and binding to bat ACE2 may arise because of variations in susceptibility among bat species to SARS-CoV-like coronaviruses or due to one of the mechanisms discussed above.

...
https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2.../20/2010146117

**Emily** · August 27, 2020, 04:06 AM

Hunt for 'Patient Zero' scientist who 'disappeared' from Wuhan lab

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/12476233/patient-zero-scientist-wuhan-lab/

A SCIENTIST dubbed “Patient Zero” who vanished from the Wuhan virus lab shortly after the first Covid-19 outbreak is being hunted by US authorities. Washington’s leading health body is demand…

WHERE IS SHE? Hunt for ‘Patient Zero’ scientist who ‘disappeared’ from Wuhan lab after coronavirus outbreak

Mark Hodge

23 Aug 2020, 9:48
Updated: 23 Aug 2020, 10:09

A SCIENTIST dubbed “Patient Zero” who vanished from the Wuhan virus lab shortly after the first Covid-19 outbreak is being hunted by US authorities.

Washington's leading health body is demanding answers from the infamous Wuhan Institute of Virology – the facility which houses zoonotic bat diseases such as coronaviruses...

**Mary Wilson** · August 27, 2020, 11:31 PM

NIH awards $7.5 million grant to EcoHealth Alliance, months after uproar over political interference

By HELEN BRANSWELL @HelenBranswell

AUGUST 27, 2020

The National Institutes of Health has awarded a $7.5 million grant to EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit organization focused on finding unknown viruses in nature, months after the cancellation of an earlier award to the group prompted an outcry over political interference.

EcoHealth had previously established a partnership with a virology laboratory in Wuhan, China — the city where the Covid-19 pandemic is believed to have begun — under the terms of a five-year grant from the NIH. That grant was due to run through 2024 but was abruptly canceled in April.

At the time, conspiracy theories were emerging that suggested that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, was either accidentally or deliberately released from the lab in Wuhan. There is no proof to support the theories, but the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff confirmed in April that U.S. intelligence was investigating the claims. And at a news conference that month, President Trump, when asked about the EcoHealth grant, pledged to “end that grant very quickly.”

The NIH later told EcoHealth Alliance that its project — part of which involved looking for new coronaviruses in bats and other animal species in China — no longer fit with the NIH’s priorities and program goals.

The cancellation was roundly criticized, with 77 U.S. Nobel laureates and 31 scientific societies writing to NIH leadership in protest, demanding that the decision be reviewed.

... The suggestion that EcoHealth’s work no longer fit NIH priorities appears to be at a minimum ironic, given that at the time its award was canceled, the group was in an evaluation process for the grant announced Thursday. ...

NIH awards $7.5 million grant to EcoHealth Alliance, months after uproar over political interference

https://www.statnews.com/2020/08/27/nih-awards-grant-to-ecohealth-alliance-months-after-uproar-over-political-interference/?utm_content=bufferb618f&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=twitter_organic

The NIH has awarded a grant to EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit organization focused on finding unknown viruses in nature, months after the cancellation of an earlier award to the group prompted an outcry over political interference.

**Emily** · August 28, 2020, 12:56 AM

Failure by WHO team to visit Wuhan sparks concerns over virus probe

https://www.ft.com/content/f9dea077-66fb-4734-9d1d-076dc93568e1

Western governments question China’s commitment to finding source of disease that has killed 800,000

Failure by WHO team to visit Wuhan sparks concerns over virus probe

Western governments question China’s commitment to finding source of disease that has killed 800,000
Christian Shepherd in Beijing, Katrina Manson in Washington and Jamie Smyth in Sydney
August 26, 2020
A recently concluded three-week trip to China by the two-person WHO team did not entail a visit to Wuhan, the central Chinese city where the first cases of novel coronavirus were detected in December 2019, the UN agency has confirmed.

The WHO said the team was merely laying the groundwork in advance of a full international mission to investigate the virus but it was also vague on whether this larger task force would visit Wuhan...

**Pathfinder** · September 6, 2020, 07:09 PM

SEPTEMBER 6, 2020 / 2:02 AM / UPDATED 11 HOURS AGO

Nothing to see: COVID origins off-limits as China's Wuhan touts recovery

David Stanway

WUHAN, China (Reuters) -
...
Foreign journalists were invited on an official tour to report on Wuhan’s efforts to rebuild its economy after the months-long trauma of COVID-19.
...
The city still restricts access to locations like the Huanan market, which was linked to the first identified cluster of infections in December.

At another wholesale market in the far north of city, which is open to the public, Reuters was tailed by security staff and deterred from speaking to stallholders and traders.
...
China has shown little appetite for an international enquiry into the origins of COVID-19 or for allowing more scrutiny of its efforts in the early stages of the outbreak...

“There is no doubt that China has been very successful in containing the virus, so why can’t they be more open?” said Huang. “If you want to dispel those myths... you don’t need to worry about people visiting the market or even the virus institute.”
...

reuters.com

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-china-wuhan/nothing-to-see-covid-origins-off-limits-as-chinas-wuhan-touts-recovery-idUSKBN25X08E

**Emily** · September 13, 2020, 02:33 AM

Could COVID-19 Have Escaped from a Lab?

https://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2020/09/09/alina-chan-broad-institute-coronavirus/

The Broad Institute's Alina Chan believes it could have.

Could COVID-19 Have Escaped from a Lab?

The world’s preeminent scientists say a theory from the Broad Institute’s Alina Chan is too wild to be believed. But when the theory is about the possibility of COVID being man-made, is this science or censorship?

By Rowan Jacobsen? 9/9/2020, 9:29 a.m.

In January, as she watched the news about a novel virus spreading out of control in China, Alina Chan braced for a shutdown. The molecular biologist at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT started stockpiling medicine and supplies. By the time March rolled around and a quarantine seemed imminent, she’d bought hundreds of dollars’ worth of fillets from her favorite fishmonger in Cambridge and packed them into her freezer. Then she began to ramp down her projects in the lab, isolating her experimental cells from their cultures and freezing them in small tubes.

As prepared as she was for the shutdown, though, she found herself unprepared for the frustration of being frozen out of work. She paced the walls of her tiny apartment feeling bored and useless. Chan has been a puzzle demon since childhood, which was precisely what she loved about her work—the chance to solve fiendishly difficult problems about how viruses operate and how, through gene therapy, they could be repurposed to help cure devastating genetic diseases. Staring out her window at the eerily quiet streets of her Inman Square neighborhood, she groaned at the thought that it could be months before she was at it again. Her mind wandered back to 2003, when she was a teenager growing up in Singapore and the first SARS virus, a close relative of this coronavirus, appeared in Asia. It hadn’t been anything like this. That one had been relatively easy to corral. How had this virus come out of nowhere and shut down the planet? Why was it so different? she asked herself...

**sharon sanders** · September 14, 2020, 11:12 AM

hat tip FrenchieGirl

Unusual Features of the SARS-CoV-2 Genome Suggesting Sophisticated
Laboratory Modification Rather Than Natural Evolution and Delineation
of Its Probable Synthetic Route

Li-Meng Yan (MD, PhD)1, Shu Kang (PhD)1, Jie Guan (PhD)1, Shanchang Hu (PhD)1

1
Rule of Law Society & Rule of Law Foundation, New York, NY, USA.

Correspondence: team.lmyan@gmail.com

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 has led to over 910,000 deaths
worldwide and unprecedented decimation of the global economy. Despite its tremendous impact, the
origin of SARS-CoV-2 has remained mysterious and controversial. The natural origin theory, although
widely accepted, lacks substantial support.

The alternative theory that the virus may have come from a
research laboratory is, however, strictly censored on peer-reviewed scientific journals.

Nonetheless, SARS-CoV-2 shows biological characteristics that are inconsistent with a naturally occurring, zoonotic
virus.

In this report, we describe the genomic, structural, medical, and literature evidence, which, when
considered together, strongly contradicts the natural origin theory.

The evidence shows that SARS-CoV-2 should be a laboratory product created by using bat coronaviruses
ZC45 and/or ZXC21 as a template and/or backbone. Building upon the evidence, we further postulate a
synthetic route for SARS-CoV-2, demonstrating that the laboratory-creation of this coronavirus is convenient
and can be accomplished in approximately six months.

Our work emphasizes the need for an independent investigation into the relevant research laboratories.
It also argues for a critical look into certain recently published data, which,
albeit problematic, was used to support and claim a natural origin of SARS-CoV-2. From a public health
perspective, these actions are necessary as knowledge of the origin of SARS-CoV-2 and of how the virus
entered the human population are of pivotal importance in the fundamental control of the COVID-19
pandemic as well as in preventing similar, future pandemics.

1. Has SARS-CoV-2 been subjected to in vitro manipulation?
We present three lines of evidence to support our contention that laboratory manipulation is part of the
history of SARS-CoV-2:
i. The genomic sequence of SARS-CoV-2 is suspiciously similar to that of a bat coronavirus
discovered by military laboratories in the Third Military Medical University (Chongqing, China)
and the Research Institute for Medicine of Nanjing Command (Nanjing, China).
ii. The receptor-binding motif (RBM) within the Spike protein of SARS-CoV-2, which determines
the host specificity of the virus, resembles that of SARS-CoV from the 2003 epidemic in a
suspicious manner. Genomic evidence suggests that the RBM has been genetically manipulated.
iii. SARS-CoV-2 contains a unique furin-cleavage site in its Spike protein, which is known to greatly
enhance viral infectivity and cell tropism. Yet, this cleavage site is completely absent in this
particular class of coronaviruses found in nature. In addition, rare codons associated with this
additional sequence suggest the strong possibility that this furin-cleavage site is not the product of
natural evolution and could have been inserted into the SARS-CoV-2 genome artificially by
techniques other than simple serial passage or multi-strain recombination events inside co-infected
tissue cultures or animals.

more...

https://www.scribd.com/document/4759...eport#download

**sharon sanders** · September 15, 2020, 02:22 PM

Apparently Dr. Yan's twitter account was suspended.

**JJackson** · September 15, 2020, 03:24 PM

There is nothing in here but the same tired 'It has furin cleavage site', 'It looks a bit like a mash-up of SARS-1 and a couple of the bat sequences', and my favourite 'Some sequences were sequenced in a military lab!!'.

Furin cleavage sites are common and despite so little effort having gone into getting CoV bat sequences they have been found before. Every time H5 or H7 LP flu transitions to the HP form it does so de-novo creating a furin cleavage site i.e. It adds enough basic amino acids to allow a wider range of proteases, like furin, to cleave it. Should my chicken shed bio-security include guards against military mad scientists turning LP into HP flus?

Of course it looks like a mash-up of other betacorona viruses that are near it on that branch of the phylogenetic tree - that is what nature does, it shuffles genes within the species gene pool. We have no idea how common S1 RBDs that are well adapted to human ACE2 receptors are in the gene pool, or furin cleavage sites, both have been found. We do not know that for flu either and have done a thousand times more work in looking at birds but we do not know which sero-type is going to cause the next flu zoonotic.

NAMRU2 & 3 suffered all kinds of conspiracy theories in both Indonesia & Egypt - dastardly US military spreading bird flu or just a front for spies. In these threads I had written something about testing in the early days of the H1N1(2009) pandemic about looking for a signal for a novel type A flu in the point of care tests results under 'Type A unsub-typed' as these might show a spike. One of our members corrected an error in my understanding of the sensitivity and then turned out to work in a US military lab in California which had been the first to sequence the new virus. Big discovery so they went to the boss and requested to announce but he said no. Reason - If it comes for us we will be knee deep in claims we lab created it, let the CDC or civilian lab announce.

Lastly look at the source, is it a peer-reviewed paper by scientists who have been studying viral genetics for years, or from a top lab? No it is from Rule of Law Society & Rule of Law Foundation, New York, NY, USA.
If you look for their wikipedia page they do not have one. The first Google link that was relevant was to https://www.causeiq.com/organization...iii,833252663/ which says it is a 501(c)(3) International human rights Organisation that was founded last year in NY. Is this a credible source on which to accuse another Nation of releasing a pathogen which is on track to kill a million people?

Announcement

Discussion: Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in Wuhan has been working with bats and coronavirus for many years - DNA manipulations, cloning....

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